Once More into the Breach with Mark (Part 4)
Almost a week passed. One of the residents of the neighborhood who had advocated relentlessly on behalf of Mark emailed me and asked for the phone number of the outreach worker. She was considering calling him to check on the progress of finding Mark housing. I provided the number and then she emailed me again, suggesting since I had already talked to him and he knew me, that I should make the call.
I had a better idea. Mark would call the outreach worker on my phone and advocate for himself and share the news that the place where he normally slept, the back porch of a vacant church, wasn't available in a week because of a new congregation renting the church. Mark had slept on the porch for over a year. It was private, safe, and the neighbors never blew the whistle because Mark kept a very low profile.
The resident thought that a good idea and also wrote she would follow up with further communication to the new program.
The next day, I found Mark in front of the grocery store hawking newspapers. I asked if he would call the outreach worker and give him an update and generally keep him on the front burner. To me, it would sound much better coming from Mark.
Mark agreed and called the outreach worker. No one answered and Mark left a voicemail. I bought a paper from him, told him to keep the faith, and went on my way.
Later that night, I received an email from the resident saying she had received a call from the Mayor's office about Mark. He had been offered two placements in Safe Rest Village but they were not his preferred choice of the nearby Clinton Triangle, so he had turned them down.
What? My emotions took off like Olympic sprinters when the starter's pistol fires.
Mark had said there hadn't been any further in-person communication from the outreach worker since initial contact. Had everything gone down after we left the voice mail message, a narrow time frame of roughly five hours? That seemed impossible. The outreach worker hadn't called me to discuss Mark's refusal, but then again, he wasn't officially obligated to do so.
I could not, would not believe my homeless friend would lie to my face and stage a phony call. We had traveled too far together to find him housing and never once had I felt he had deceived me or embellished or omitted any part of his story of homelessness.
Something didn't seem right. I emailed the resident in the morning asking for clarification and/or confirmation. She wrote back an hour later saying she didn't know the timing of Mark's refusal.
I had to know the truth. I would seek Mark out that very day and ask him. It would or would not be a confrontation.
Elmer the husky and I took our second walk of the morning, this one through the wildlife refuge, and thoughts of my impending conversation with Mark dominated my mind. My preoccupation was so intense I didn't even stop and marvel at a peregrine falcon perched in a leafless oak.